5. Chapter 5
Jade
Reeves arrives twelve minutes early, which Pierce told us would be the move.
Graham opens the door to a man in a beige trench coat who looks like he hasn't smiled since the late nineties.
He doesn't offer a hand. He offers a clipboard.
He also, I notice, refuses the coffee Graham offers as a matter of professional principle, then asks for water without ice, which tells me everything I need to know about how this is going to go.
"Mr. Sterling. Donald Reeves. I'm with the family services office. I want to be clear up front that I'm conducting the preliminary intake only. The full evaluator will be assigned later in the proceedings, after the court reviews my initial report. Today is informational."
"I see."
"Then I'll get started."
He steps past Graham without waiting to be invited. His eyes scan the foyer, lingering on a stack of unfinished baseboards.
"Quite a project. The Whitlocks mentioned the renovation was... ambitious."
The name lands like a small stone dropped in still water. Graham's jaw tightens by a fraction.
"It will be finished by November."
"Hm. Mrs. Whitlock expressed some concern about the timeline. She's been very generous with her input."
I step forward, hand extended. "I'm Jade Alvarez. The nanny. I have Iris's schedule and her records ready for you in the kitchen."
Reeves looks at me. He looks at my hand. He shakes it like a man shaking hands with something he expects to be sticky.
"Records."
"Sleep patterns. Meals. Pediatric appointments. I've been keeping a log."
"How thorough."
"I prefer that to the alternative."
He doesn't smile. He gestures for me to lead the way.
I spend the next hour walking him through Iris's life on paper. He asks questions in a voice that suggests he's already decided what he thinks. I keep mine neutral, one hand flat on the table.
"And Mr. Sterling. He's involved in the day-to-day."
"Every day."
"Define every day."
"He has breakfast with her. He's home for dinner. He reads to her at night. He hasn't traveled in over a month."
"That seems unusual for a man in his position. Mrs. Whitlock indicated his work schedule had historically prevented this kind of involvement."
"It seems exactly right for a father in his position. Today."
Reeves writes something down. I do not let myself look at the clipboard. But I file the second Whitlock reference. He's been briefed. Thoroughly.
Graham appears in the kitchen doorway. He's changed jackets since this morning. He doesn't look at me. He looks at Reeves.
"Mr. Reeves. Anything else you need from me directly?"
"A few questions, Mr. Sterling. About your schedule. Your lifestyle adjustments."
"Ask them."
Reeves pulls a sheet from his clipboard. "The records show several incidents in your twenties involving public intoxication. Disorderly conduct."
"Sealed records, Mr. Reeves."
"Subject to a pending motion to unseal in family court. The petition argues the records are material to the custody determination."
"By whose order."
"The motion was granted Tuesday. Limited disclosure for this proceeding only."
"By whose order."
"That's not relevant to my evaluation."
"It is to mine."
The two men look at each other. Reeves breaks first. He looks back at his clipboard.
"Are you currently in any program for substance use, Mr. Sterling."
"I have not had a drink in seven years. I see a therapist twice a month. I can provide documentation."
"That would be helpful."
"It will be at your office by five o'clock today."
"Thank you."
Graham doesn't move. Still standing in the doorway, blocking it the way I've started to recognize. Not aggressive. Just there.
"Anything else, Mr. Reeves?"
"I'd like to see the child's room."
"Jade will show you. I'll be in the study if you have further questions."
He turns and walks back down the hall. Reeves watches him go. Something in the set of his mouth tightens, like a man whose script isn't matching the room.
"This way, Mr. Reeves."
Iris's room is bright. Her bed is made. Judge sits on the windowsill facing the lake, the way she likes him. Crayons in a jar on the desk. A row of picture books on a low shelf she can reach.
Reeves takes longer than he needs to with his pen.
"How long have you been employed here, Ms. Alvarez."
"A few weeks."
"And in that time, have you observed anything that concerned you. About Iris. About her father. About the household."
I think about Graham's hand shaking on Iris's blanket in the dark. The way he said the dock is still there, the water is cold, I'm not going anywhere. I think about a child who was barricaded in a bathroom a week ago and now sleeps through the night.
"I have observed a father trying very hard to do the right thing for a child who has lost her mother. That's all."
Reeves writes that down too. The angle of his pen suggests he's writing it the way you write something you'll later contradict.
By noon, he's gone.
I stand in the foyer with the door shut behind him and listen to the gravel crunch under his tires until the sound fades. The black town car is parked at the end of the drive again. The Whitlocks' man, waiting for the report.
Graham is in his study. The door is closed.
"Iris," I call up the stairs. "Shoes. We need milk."
"Coming!"
Linden Lake's main street is three blocks of brick storefronts and one stoplight that turns red for cars that aren't there.
The Ainsley General Store sits between the post office and a hardware shop with a hand-painted sign in the window.
I park out front. Iris hops out with Judge tucked under her arm.
Inside, the store smells like coffee grounds and old wood.
A woman in her sixties stands behind the register.
Reading glasses on a beaded chain. A name tag that says EDITH.
She looks up when the bell rings, sees Iris first, then me.
Her face does something I've started to recognize.
The small-town look. The one that says I knew her mother and I'm not yet sure about you.
"Morning."
"Morning. Just the milk and a workbook for first grade, if you have one."
"Aisle two. Workbooks behind the magazines."
Iris finds the workbooks without complaint. She picks one with foxes on the cover and holds it up for approval. I nod. She tucks it under her arm.
I bring the workbook and the milk to the register. Edith rings it up without comment. When she hands back the change, her mouth shifts. Half a degree. Not friendly. Not yet. But she meets my eyes.
"Tell your husband the post office holds his mail in the back. They don't put it in the box anymore. Liability."
"He's not my..."
"I know what he's not." A pause. "I knew Chloe."
She doesn't say what she means by that. She doesn't have to.
I walk Iris to the car with my hand on her shoulder. She leans into me. Just a small lean, the kind of weight a child gives you when she's testing whether you'll hold it. I keep my hand where it is. We walk all the way to the car like that.
We come back with milk and a first-grade workbook.
I take Iris down to the dock. The water is a deep, bruised blue. She sits on the edge of the wood, dangling her feet, stuffed owl on her lap, watching a pair of ducks paddle through the reeds.
"Jade?" she asks, without looking at me.
"Yeah, kiddo?"
"What's that one called?"
I follow her finger to a duck slightly apart from the others, paddling against the current with an attitude I can only describe as deliberate.
"Which one?"
"The pushy one. With the crooked feather."
I consider this. "Greg."
She tilts her head. "Greg," she repeats, testing the weight of it. Then, satisfied: "Hi, Greg."
She goes quiet, watching him. A minute passes.
"Jade?"
"Yeah?"
"Is Daddy going to go away? Like Mommy did?"
The question is a knife to the ribs. I sit down beside her, the wood warm against my legs. I smooth a piece of hair back behind her ear before I answer, the way I did on the kitchen floor during the thunderstorm. She tips her head against my shoulder without thinking about it.
"No. He's not going anywhere. He's fighting very hard to stay right here with you."
"Grandma said he's bad," she whispers. "She said he's a bad man."
Beatrice Whitlock is a poison, and she has been pouring it into a six-year-old's ear.
"Your daddy isn't bad, Iris. He's just sad. And sometimes when people are sad, they forget how to show they're good. But he loves you more than anything in the world. Even more than he loves his fancy suits."
She giggles, small and fragile, and stays leaned against my shoulder.
Then I hear gravel crunch behind us.
I turn, expecting Graham. It's a woman I don't recognize. Tall, blonde, expensive dress. She looks like she stepped out of a luxury travel magazine, and she's watching us with a flat, assessing contempt.
"So," she says, her voice carefully neutral. "You're the new one."
I stand up, keeping my body between her and Iris. "I'm Jade Alvarez. And you are?"
"Someone who used to be where you're standing. Not exactly. But close enough."
She glances at Iris, then back at me. Her expression isn't hostile. It's careful. The way a person looks when she has driven for many hours and is choosing every word.
"I'm not here to make a scene. I'm here because nobody told me what I'm about to tell you, and I had to figure it out the hard way.
Graham has people around him who have spent years convincing him they belong there.
One of them doesn't. He's been making himself useful for a long time, and the day Graham slips is the day he moves. "
"Who."
"I'm not saying a name today. Saying a name today gets you a lawsuit and gets me followed home." She looks at Iris, who is humming to her owl on the dock. "Ask Graham who he's been mentoring. Ask him who he trusts inside his own building. Whoever he answers with, watch that one."
She turns and walks back toward her car before I can respond.
I watch her go. The dread settles cold in my chest.
I take Iris back to the house, my mind racing.
Graham is in the hallway. He looks like he's ready to put his fist through a wall. His jaw is set, his eyes hard. He saw the car from the window, or someone told him, or he just knows the way people who've been betrayed before always know when something has arrived on their doorstep.
But he doesn't know what she said. That's clear the moment he looks at me.
"Who was that?" His voice is careful. Too controlled. "The blonde in the Mercedes. She was on the property."
"Her name is Tiffany," I say. "She said she knew you."
Something moves across his face. Old. "What did she say to you?"
"She said there's someone at your company you need to look at. Someone close to you. Someone you've been mentoring."
He goes very still.
"That's all I'm giving you until you tell me what I'm walking into." I hold his gaze. "Because she drove many hours, Graham. That's not nothing."
He looks at me for a long time. The silence stretches until I feel it pressing against my ribs.
He doesn't ask which detail came from her. He doesn't ask how I'd describe her face. The way he isn't asking is its own answer.
"There's one move that stops them cold." His voice is low, certain. Like he's already made the decision and is just waiting for me to catch up. "But I can't ask it of you yet."
"Why not?"
"Because you'd say no." He pushes off the wall and crosses to the window, his back to me, looking out at the lake. "And I need you to trust me first."
I open my mouth. Close it.
There's something in how he said yet that I can't shake. Like it's already decided. Like he's just giving me time to get there on my own.
"Graham..."
"Go check on Iris. We'll talk again."
I walk out.
I make it three steps down the hallway before his hand closes around my wrist.
Not rough. Not asking permission either.
I stop. He turns me around slowly, his grip sliding from my wrist to my hand, and then he just holds it. His thumb presses once against my palm like he's checking for something.
He's close. Too close. The hallway is narrow and he fills it in a way that makes the walls feel smaller.
"I need you to understand something." His voice is low. Private.
"Then say it."
He doesn't say it. His eyes drop to my mouth and stay there long enough that my breath goes shallow. His free hand comes up and his fingers graze the line of my jaw. Barely contact. Just enough that I feel it everywhere.
My fingers tighten around his without deciding to.
He makes a sound low in his throat. Steps in. One inch. Two. Close enough that his chest radiates heat through my shirt, and I smell the cedar and clean cotton of him, and my whole body tips forward like a magnet finding north.
His forehead almost touches mine.
Then his jaw tightens. He exhales through his nose. Steps back.
He releases my hand carefully, like he's setting something fragile down.
"Get some sleep, Jade."
He turns and walks back toward his study. The door clicks shut behind him.
I stand in the hallway with my hand still warm where he held it.
I don't sleep. Not even close.